To serve the Church’s real needs

The appointing of the first deacons suggests a possible solution for a major need facing our Church today: how to ensure continuation of sacramental service to the People of God. It is clear that the apostles did not seek to end all debate on disputed issues by dogmatic decree, forbidding all further discussion! And their process of selecting the deacons — seeking consensus among the faithful about worthy candidates — has much to recommend it…

Sharing our resources

Today we find Jesus and his disciples faced with a hungry crowd and little or no means of feeding them. In this situation of need, people reacted in different ways. Philip made a calculation: on the basis of the number of people and the amount of money available to buy food, and decided that nothing could be done. Andrew recognized that one of the crowd had a small amount of food but he dismissed this small resource…

Speaking our truth with love

It can be hard to distinguish inner strength from a stubborn spirit of confrontation. How can we know if our convictions are from God and should be obeyed at all costs? Is it possible that our resistance to authority could be rooted merely in pride? Direct revelations from above must be quite rare, so how can we tell if God is really prompting us?

A religion of sincerity and truth

Peter and John are caught in a conflict that involves the high priest and the entire Sanhedrin besides the temple guards. The apostles are imprisoned, and God sends angels to intervene. This same struggle is echoed at universal level in John’s gospel about God’s sending his only son as the light of this world. Light and darkness clash, leading to a judgment for the world. After being freed by an angel, Peter and John are again in the temple courtyard, preaching to an enthusiastic audience. They seem to ignore their recent escape

Guided by the light

We can notice a stretch in the evenings these days, now that it is bright beyond 7.00 pm. Most of us like the light. We are pleased to know that the daylight is lengthening every day at this time of the year. Our heart sinks a bit in Winter when we see how the days have begun to get shorter. Even though most of us like the light, the gospel notes how people seem to prefer darkness to light.

As the wind blows

When and where the Spirit comes, and with what effect on our lives, cannot be determined in advance. “The wind blows where it will… You do not know where it comes from or where it goes.” Hebrew RUACH and Greek PNEUMA mean both wind and spirit. Nor can a previous encounter with the Spirit determine how it will happen next time, for the Spirit comes unexpectedly. In fact, the sudden gift of the Spirit to the unbaptized household of the Roman officer who was non-Jewish and non-Christian, took even Peter by surprise…

Overcoming obstacles to faith

The Sanhedrin, Judaism’s supreme ruling body, found it impossible to imagine that Jesus could be the Messiah, and that he had really risen from the dead. To believe in him would demand a major change in the whole furniture of their belief-system; nothing less than a total reinterpretation of their Scripture and cherished traditions. Yet these two Galilean fishermen, Peter and John, stood there, insisting that

Building upon the grace of God

The apostles went back to where they started, to Galilee, where they continued their work as fishermen. But their lives had been transformed by their contact with Jesus, and when they met him by the lake-shore, they recognised him, hauled in the net at his advice, and heard his guidance for their future, building on the past.

Hard to take in

Luke’s account in today’s gospel shows the great difficulty the disciples had believing that it was the same Jesus they had come to know and love who was now standing before them. They thought they were seeing a ghost and their joy was so great that they could not believe it, and they stood dumbfounded. Clearly it took the disciples a while to take in the good news of Easter…

Life-changing encounter

The Emmaus story is a living paradigm for Christian discipleship. It strongly suggests that if we travel life’s journey with others, sharing our faith and our doubts with them, Christ will be with us, opening our minds to the truth. Just as he gave them deeper insight, so he does for all who listen to him…

Coming to recognise the Lord

A fascinating side of the Easter stories is how they convey a sense of gradual recognition of the risen Jesus, by his closest friends and followers. John’s vivid portrayal of Mary Magdalene challenging the gardener to hand back the body of Jesus conveys some sense of their stupor and confusion. At first, all they hoped for was to be able to show honour to his mortal remains. But when he calls Mary by her name

Different understandings of the resurrection

Our New Testament writers attempt in varied ways to describe the miracle and mystery of our Lord’s dying and rising. As Peter’s sermon at Pentecost was addressed to Jews from different countries but all sharing a Jewish identity, he sets Jesus within the framework of Jewish history…

Evocative signs

This is our Passover, the night of nights and the feast of feasts. Let us celebrate and rejoice, therefore! To help our feelings catch up with our convictions, on this holy night we use fire and darkness and water, readings and songs to mark and to evoke the great events of our salvation. We bring to the feast whatever is “dark” in our own lives, whatever is in need of light and healing…

Calvary sets in consoling relief the experience of all who suffer – whether the nightmare of physical pain or the emotional trauma of significant loss or the prospect of imminent death. The human Jesus, struggling to come to terms with the reality of his predicament, echoes every human experience of suffering and of loss…

St John implies that we are united with Jesus by letting him wash our feet, accepting his great act of loving service. Having accepted the gift we must embrace it as a value to practice in our lives. What Jesus does for us in his Passion shows us how to live. In some real sense, we must live like Jesus, “for” God and others…

The motives of Judas

This is “Spy Wednesday”, so called from the betrayal of Jesus by Judas, one of his own chose inner circle of Twelve. Poor Judas was doubtless talented, probably very astute, and had in his youth some spark of idealism; and yet when it came to the test he proved treacherous, unreliable, profoundly untrustworthy. The Gospels offer a few clues…

Contrasting responses to Jesus

Today’s gospel portrays very different responses to Jesus on the part of his disciples as he enters into the final days of his earthly life. The disciple Jesus loved is described as “reclining next to Jesus’, literally, “close to the heart of Jesus.” In the very first chapter of his gospel, the evangelist described Jesus as “close to the heart of the Father”..

In memory of her

The impulsive, loving gesture done for Jesus by his close friend Mary of Bethany, is so inspirational that it’s a wonder the Church has not made more of it in our liturgy. Mary may not yet have seen Jesus in the full light of prophecy, as “a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners who sit in darkness” (1st Reading), or indeed as the world’s only Saviour, but she knew and loved him as a man of God, a fearless preacher…